The other shook his butter-colored skull as if he had suddenly received a stinging blow on it with a switch, and his red face became crimson-hued at the sight of Sulpice, his successor in office, standing before him, politely holding out to him his two gloved hands.

Guy de Lissac was no longer laughing.

Their two Excellencies found themselves face to face at the foot of the greenroom staircase, in the midst of a crowd of brahmins, dancers, negresses, and female supernumeraries; two Excellencies meeting there; one smiling, the other grimacing beneath the glance of this curious, shrewd little world.

“Ah!  I have caught you, my dear colleague,” cried Sulpice, very much amused at Pichereau’s embarrassed air, his coat buttoned close like a Quaker’s and his little eyes blinking behind his spectacles, and looking as sheepish as a sacristan caught napping.

“Me?” stammered Pichereau.  “Me?  But my dear Minister, it’s you—­yes, you whom I came expressly to seek!”

“Here?” said Vaudrey.

“Yes, here!”

“Really?”

“I had something to say to you—­I—­yes, I wanted—­”

The unlucky Pichereau mechanically pulled and jerked at his waistcoat, then assuming a dignified, grave air, he whistled and hesitated, and finally stammered: 

“I wished to speak with you—­yes—­to consult with you upon a matter of grave importance—­concerning Protestant communities.”

Sulpice could not restrain his laughter.

Pichereau, with his look of a Calvinistic preacher, was throwing from behind his spectacles glowing looks in the direction where Marie Launay stood listening to and laughing at the badinage of Molina.  Some newspaper reporters, scenting a handy paragraph, came sauntering up to overhear some fragment of the conversation between the minister of yesterday and him of to-day.

Guy de Lissac stood carelessly by, secretly very much amused at Pichereau, who did not move, but rubbing his hands nervously together was trying to appear at ease, yet by his sour smile at his successor allowing it to be plainly seen how gladly he would have strangled Vaudrey.

“My dear colleague,” said Sulpice, gayly, “we will talk elsewhere about your communities.  This is hardly the place. Non est hic locus! Good-bye!”

“Good-bye, your Excellency,” replied Pichereau with forced politeness.

Vaudrey drew Lissac away, saying with a suppressed laugh: 

“Oh! oh! the Quaker!  He has laid down his portfolio, but he has kept the key to the greenroom, it seems.”

“It would appear,” replied Guy, “that the door leading into the greenroom may open to scenes of consolation for fallen greatness.  The blue eyes of Marie Launay always serve as a sparadrap to a fallen minister!”

“Was the fat Molina right?  To lose the votes of the majority is perhaps the malady of the knee of ministers,” said Vaudrey merrily.